Welcome to the Rook House Chess Blog. This portion of our website was designed to provide instant interaction with chess enthusiasts all over the world. We cover many topics such as chess news, chess history, and the occasional chess puzzle.

Please visit our main website at www.rookhouse.com and view our extensive collection of historical facts and games. Lastly, please remember to be civil and respectful to all users of this site.

March 25, 2009

Botvinnik-Capablanca (1936)

Filed under: History — Rook House @ 12:11 pm

Capablanca vs Botvinnik 

The third Moscow international chess tournament in 1936 had an impressive field of participants, including two former world champions (Jose Raul Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker) and one future world champion (Mikhail Botvinnik).  The tournament took place at the Hall of Columns in Moscow, Russia from May 14th to June 8th, 1936.

The solid mix of Western and Soviet competitors were to play a double round-robin, consisting of eighteen total games.  Capablanca, nine years removed from being the world champion, was alone in first place at the halfway mark.  A point and a half behind him were Botvinnik, Lasker, and Viacheslav Ragozin. The only player to keep within reasonable distance of the leader was Botvinnik, but he eventually finished a full point behind the tournament champion, Capablanca.

The tournament book was written by one of the participants, Gregory Levenfish and later translated to English by Jimmy Adams. 

Lastly, the seventh round game between Capablanca and Botvinnik was an instant classic and is shown below. Enjoy.

• • •

No Comments »

No comments yet.

Comments RSSTrackBack URI

Leave a comment

E-Mail Us | Powered by WordPress | Copyright © 2006-2008 Rook House. All Rights Reserved. | Site best viewed at 1280 x 1024.